What He Sees
by middleishearth
Summary: Confined to a room in a mental hospital, the intellectual great William (Sherlock) Holmes has much more beneath the surface. One by one, doctor by doctor comes to take care of the patient, but mysterious circumstances leave everyone in the hospital baffled.
1. Chapter 1

It was the same thing every day. Patient 221 lay still in his bed and said nothing. The other doctors said he was insane.

Doctor Lestrade thought something else.

Patient 221 wasn't just a comatose figure lying in a bland, white hospital bed. He was so much more. Lestrade knew it. He'd only been Patient 221's personal caregiver for six months, but he already knew there was more to Patient 221's condition that he let on.

You see, he wasn't just lying there. He moved. And talked. But only when Lestrade was there.

"Good day, Detective Inspector," Patient 221 would say every morning. "Got any new cases?"

And every morning Lestrade would respond with no.

"What a pity," Patient 221 would say, folding his hands across his chest and peaking his fingers like a tiny, sideways mountain. "John and I are so bored."

Patient 221 had mentioned John increasingly more frequently in his conversation. Lestrade had done research on the name, and he had found something disturbing. John Watson was an army doctor in Afghanistan. He had been killed in action about four months ago.

"Maybe I'll visit Molly instead," Patient 221 continued. "Hopefully she'll have something interesting at the morgue."

Molly was Patient 221's girlfriend, back when he was called William Holmes and lived in a swanky London apartment with her and his brother. After William spiraled into insanity about a year ago and began to be called Patient 221, Molly, his brother, and his housekeeper all committed suicide. Lestrade had heard the lore. Apparently, it was rumored that William's brother began calling himself Mycroft and shot Molly and the housekeeper, as well as himself. Lestrade had no idea if that was true, but no one ever saw the brother, Molly, or Mrs. Hudson again. The swanky apartment remained empty, and legend has it that the apartment was cursed with the ghosts of the three people.

Lestrade shook his head and allowed himself to smile just a bit. That kind of thing was nonsense. He was a doctor, for Christ's sake, and he knew none of that could be true.

But why was Patient 221 calling him by name?

"It's Sherlock," Patient 221 replied, as if he'd heard Lestrade's thought. "Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective. John knows, Molly knows, Mycroft knows, Mrs. Hudson knows, even Moriarty knows! Get it together!"

Lestrade drew back, startled. Moriarty. The drug lord, killed in an attempt to steal the crown jewels.

A smile slowly spread across Patient 221's gaunt face. "There you have it, Detective Inspector," he said, his voice like a stick being dragged across a storm drain. "Or should I call you Greg Lestrade?"

Lestrade's eyes widened, unable to do much else. He tried to scream, but Patient 221 was already lunging forward.


	2. Chapter 2

Fresh-faced and just out of college, Anderson wasn't the person you'd normally think would be interested in psychotic mental patients.

But then again, Anderson wasn't the person you'd normally think of. Wild-haired and beady-eyed, he loped around the hospital, his clumsiness making him seem much taller than he actually was. He'd been struggling with marijuana addiction for a while, but it was mostly under control now. It made him happy, and that was all it did. For the most part, he did his job and other people left him alone.

At least, that's how it was before Doctor Lestrade.

They found him, bloodied and broken, sprawled out on the floor next to Patient 221's bed. There was no evidence of a struggle. Anderson didn't know what to make of it.

He'd have to learn soon.

Gritting his teeth and inhaling until his chest rose about three inches, Anderson entered the room.

Patient 221 looked like he hadn't moved in ages. His face was pale and sunken in, and his mass of curls grew ever longer. The only things different were his hands. They were jammed against his bony chin, the tips pressed together kind of like how you'd play "this is the church, this is the steeple." His mouth was slack, but closed. It almost looked like he was in deep thought, but Anderson dismissed the idea as something he'd cooked up while he was high. He had to be seeing things. Mental patients don't act this way.

"Good morning, Anderson," Patient 221 said in a sarcastic tone. "You should have stayed home today. Taken a day off. You know this isn't your case. You couldn't even figure out how I died."

"I couldn't even figure out what?" Anderson asked, easing down into a chair near the bed. It felt like all the air was suddenly gone from the room.

"Oh, shut up," Patient 221 said. "You're making it hard to think. You're really good at that."

Anderson sat back in the chair, shaking his head. He was used to patients mumbling nonsense in his direction and trying to make conversation, but Patient 221 knowing his name? Making fun of him, even? This was completely new.

"John's a better friend than you would ever be. You're too obsessive. Too mixed up in all the little things. Even Mycroft's better."

Anderson began to breathe a little faster. John. Mycroft. Before . . . before the accident, Lestrade had told him that Patient 221 would talk about these people. Lestrade didn't know who they were at the time, but by some rime or reason, everything was falling into place. John. The army doctor who had died a while back. Mycroft. The name William Holmes's brother had taken before he died, along with Mrs. Hudson the housekeeper and Molly, William's girlfriend.

Patient 221 couldn't - no. Anderson dismissed the thought with a flick of his hand. That couldn't be true. It went against everything he'd been taught. It was impossible.

"Oh, Anderson," Patient 221 chuckled, slowly turning his head toward him, eyes still closed, mouth still lax. One dark brown curl fell into his face, and one of the hands left the steeple and pushed it away. "Oh, Anderson," Patient 221 repeated, slowly reaching the other hand in Anderson's direction.

Anderson's skin turned ice cold when he saw blood under Patient 221's fingernails.


End file.
